FYI

Those with information about the murder of Tremaine Newburn are eligible for a cash reward of up to $2,500. To submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers, call 1-800-SPEAK-UP, 1-800-773-2587 or visit www.1800speakup.org.

When 25-year-old Tremaine Newburn was shot in an alley off Mark Avenue on Pontiac’s west side on Jan. 16, 2011, he was with his girlfriend, who was pregnant with his second child.

He died early the next morning, never getting to meet his son, Dacyan, now 3. Newburn is also survived by his son, Mainito, 4.

Newburn’s mother, Karen, wants her son’s killer found and arrested, and Crime Stoppers of Michigan stepped in to help Friday, offering a cash reward of as much as $2,500 for information in the case.

“I just want to know what’s taking so long. Something needs to be done, because the (perpetrator) is out walking scot-free,” Newburn said.

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Tips made to Crime Stoppers are anonymous.

“You know all that stuff about ‘you’re not supposed to tell,’ but what if it was your son, your child, your family?”

As Tremaine and Yolanda Colon walked down an alley from the Sunoco station on Huron Street to their home at 84 Mark Avenue at about 11 p.m. on Jan. 16, 2011, a man walking ahead of them disappeared, said Crime Stoppers of Michigan spokesman Anthony Jones.

The man then came from behind a parked car and shot Newburn once in the side. He died at about 2 a.m. the next morning at what was then Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital.

Newburn said Friday that she questions how evidence in her son’s shooting was handled.

“I got all (his) clothes back the same night. When they pronounced him dead, I got all his belongings back,” she said.

“I thought they would have kept them to see the gunsmoke residue.”

The Pontiac Police Department was dissolved later in 2011 when the city contracted with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office for police protection.

Oakland County Sheriff’s Lt. Gary Miller said Friday that the Newburn case is an active investigation. Miller said he’s unable to comment on specifics due to the case being open.

Police named a person of interest in Newburn’s shooting at the time. The man could not be reached for comment Friday.

The man who was named as a person of interest received a speeding ticket in Pontiac about eight months after Newburn’s shooting, according to 50th District Court records. He was convicted of delivery of marijuana in July 2012 in Oakland County Circuit and again on the same charge in December of that year.

Newburn himself was one of three named as a person of interest in a December 2008 double homicide on Mark Avenue.

At the time of his death, Newburn was attending Bethune Alternative School and working as a security guard at Cobo Center, his mother said.

“I was hoping someone would please step forward and let us know who took my son’s life. It’s been hard on me and family,” she said.

“I really need that closure, and so does my family.”

About the Author

I cover the City of Pontiac, as well as the northern Oakland County communities of Brandon Township, the Village of Ortonville, Springfield Township and Groveland Township. Reach the author at dustin.blitchok@oakpress.com
or follow Dustin on Twitter: @SincerelyDustin.